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Aging : Aren't we all... (but are we getting better?)

I have always been fascinated by the stories of elders, of times likely richer in imagination than in reality, of days that have been changed irretrievably.

Great wines are generally characterized by their capacity to age for a long time...
-- Ribereau-Gayon et al.

I gravitated to wine partly because it paints a rich picture for today, but mostly because it has an immortal aspect that can live long after activities of the day can be remembered. I do not rightfully know if ageability is important to me because great wines age a long time or if I pronounce a wine great because it will age a long time.

Aging seems to confuse people. We're often asked if such-and-such a wine will age well, when to drink it, when it would "go bad." Most know we should hold the wine so it can improve, but how long is too long? Many of us, me included, have a great image of climbing treacherous stairs down into a cobwebby, damp cellar, retrieving a bottle that you cradle in your arm like a first-born child. And proudly presenting it to friends close enough to thank you genuinely, and old enough to remember the events surrounding a vintage that is two wars, ten presidents and a marriage ago -- a wine from simpler times, that is now more complex, less hard-edged, gentler and infinitely long-lasting. Like us, we'd like to think.

In great vintages, varietals from a cool climate age the best. This is not to say they stay the same. It is to say the quality improves or maintains despite the changes they naturally undergo. To expect a luscious, full-fruited, bright young wine to maintain those characteristics over twenty years is unrealistic. In great wines brightness and fruit do subside, but are replaced by additional complexities and flavors that depend less on the fruit aspect and more on floral, spice, forest and earth aspects. If we equate good wine with jamminess or citrus or plummy fruit, wines cease to be interesting except in new releases. If we wait patiently for delicate aromatics and sensual textures, if we learn to value different levels of brown, spicy woods-on-a-winter-day flavors and waves of complex layers, we see a new world of wine, with greater dimensionality.

Of course, it costs time and therefore money to age wines, some varietals more than others: Bordeaux varietals to resolve initial roughness of tannin and grape extractives, Burgundy varietals less so, to add finesse. Industry strides technologically aim at reducing aging time, looking to modified fermentation practices, micro-oxidation, ripeness, new climates and other changes to speed wines to the table.

At Chehalem we may be obtuse, but we're going in the other direction.We want to retain Pinot noir's naturally early drinkability, but strive to extend vigorous, complex life as long as possible.With Pinot noir we are looking for a wine that will retain its primary fruit for 5-7 years; moving to secondary aromatics of earth and spice or what the Burgundians call sous bois or forest floor -- along the lines of mushroom, earth, humus -- an ultimate complexity that, with remaining fruit and barrel aspects, make aged Pinot noir the most revered of wine experiences.

Improvements in aging do not require that we reinvent our wines. Instead, we look to respect the key factors in ageability and make wines that play to them. A wine for aging must above all be balanced, from the start. Healthy, mature fruit must be fermented to extract well but not coarsely, aged in enough, but not too much French oak to complex and soften tannins, and finished with handling befitting a delicate wine. Great Chardonnay is made similarly, with exceptional fruit pedigree of clone and site and care taken to balance dimensions of the wine. Particularly, great wines must have a spherical, three-dimensional balance of acidity, fruit intensity, tannin, alcohol and barrel vectors. The degree of balance determines ageability.

The character of Pinot noir as it ages depends on chemical changes that are apparent in wine color and texture. Young, purple colors change to redder garnet hues in the first three or four years as fruit and raw tannins combine, the beginning of a progression of polymerization that gives supple, complex and transparent wines in the mid-term, and eventually ends in heavy compounds dropping out as sediment in old and faded wines.		White wines, without appreciable tannin, depend greatly on a balance of fruit, acidity, alcohol and barrel for ageability. Cool climes excel in providing these balances.

Illustration showing ageability curves for selected Chehalem Pinot Noir

We see aging as a moderately steep ascent over a couple years, followed by an extended plateau at its innate quality level, during which it continues to transform qualities as we described above. It ends with a gradual decline during which fruit decline and pigment-tannin precipitation hollows out the wine.

The curves shown in the illustration above are our subjective estimates of ageability for selected Chehalem wines. The descriptions from a vertical tasting (See: Library Tasting) of all Chehalem Pinot noirs and selected whites, should give our sense of our wines' futures.